Generally, the businesses we work with have hit a ceiling with their online sales and their current developers. They’re looking for a partner to take them to the next level. Porselli Dancewear was different – they were losing ground to competitors and bleeding revenue from problems their £100/hour agency couldn’t (or wouldn’t) fix.
When customers reported their checkout was hanging during payment confirmation – leaving them uncertain if orders had even processed – Stuart knew they’d hit rock bottom.
When Premium Service Meets Broken Technology
Porselli Dancewear should have been thriving. With 16,000+ product variations, they’re one of the UK’s most comprehensive dancewear retailers. Their customer service is exceptional – they respond to issues within hours, personally call about order problems, and maintain a 4.1-star Google rating despite inheriting terrible reviews from the previous owner.
But none of that mattered when the checkout didn’t work.
“It undermines confidence in the website,” Stuart told us. With revenue down 20% year-over-year and their major supplier Capezio now selling direct to consumers at lower prices, every lost conversion hurt. Their Google Ads ROAS had crashed from a profitable 5-8x down to barely 3x – a clear sign of deeper conversion issues.
The family business Gina had inherited – somewhat reluctantly – from her mother was 9 months from closure if nothing changed.
The Developer Lock-In Trap
The most frustrating part? Stuart knew exactly what needed fixing. As a former banking executive who’d spent recent years consulting in payments, he understood user experience. But their current agency had them trapped:
- No developer access to their own site
- £100/hour for any changes (plus VAT)
- Hosted on shared AWS servers they couldn’t migrate from
- Support contract prepaid through May with no refunds
“They don’t give a shit,” Stuart said bluntly. “They’re happy to collect their monthly fee to ‘optimize’ our Google Ads without any return.”
Every other agency kept pushing the same solution: “Move to Shopify.” But Stuart understood what many don’t – owning your infrastructure matters. “I want to own my business, not rent it from a platform.”
Why Specialists See What Others Miss
When we evaluated Porselli’s site, we found issues their expensive agency had overlooked for years:
The Checkout Disaster: Multiple friction points causing abandonment:
- Hanging payment confirmations leaving customers in limbo
- Unnecessary required fields varying by region
- No progress indicators or trust signals
- Missing express payment options
Hidden UX Violations: Our 239-point evaluation revealed:
- Product pages missing critical trust elements (zero reviews after years online)
- Search functionality failing on misspellings (“most people can’t spell”)
- Category navigation requiring excessive clicks to find products
- Mobile experience issues despite significant mobile traffic
Complex Requirements Ignored:
- Need for differential pricing (online vs in-store)
- Returns process from the 1990s (literal paper forms)
- No integration between online and physical store inventory
- Multi-supplier complexity with varying margin structures
But here’s what made us different: we understood the constraints. Stuart needed someone who could work within his reality – limited budget, existing infrastructure, prepaid hosting contract, and a ticking clock. Our custom development expertise meant we could work with what they had.
The Pragmatic Transformation
We didn’t rebuild Porselli’s entire site. We surgically fixed what was killing conversions while working within their constraints:
Checkout Overhaul
- Eliminated hanging payment states with proper error handling
- Implemented smart field requirements by region
- Added clear progress indicators and trust signals
- Integrated express payment options for returning customers
Search That Actually Works:
- Typo tolerance for the reality that dancers can’t spell “character shoes”
- Instant results with visual feedback
- Category integration for browsing 16,000+ variations
- Intelligent filtering that actually helps discovery
Trust Rebuilding:
- Structured data for Google’s rich snippets
- Review system implementation (finally)
- Proper breadcrumbs and navigation hierarchy
- Mobile-first optimization for product browsing
Technical Liberation:
- Negotiated developer access with their current host
- Implemented headless architecture for sub-second loads
- Maintained all existing WooCommerce workflows
- Created pathway to escape vendor lock-in
Early Indicators of Recovery
One month post-launch, the metrics tell an encouraging story:
Engagement Transformation:
- Engaged sessions per active user: Up 10.34%
- Average engagement time: Up 77.78% (from 1m 09s to 2m 04s)
These aren’t vanity metrics. When users spend nearly twice as long on your site, they’re finding what they need. When engagement jumps double digits, friction has been removed.
The checkout that was literally breaking? Now completes reliably. The products that were impossible to find? Now surfaced through intelligent search. The trust that was eroding? Rebuilding through every interaction.
While it’s too early for final revenue numbers, Stuart’s already seeing what matters: customers completing purchases instead of calling to complain.
The Specialist Difference
Most agencies would have pushed Porselli toward an expensive rebuild or platform migration. As WooCommerce specialists since 2010, we knew better. We understood:
- The complexity of 16,000+ SKUs with variant pricing
- The challenge of competing against your own suppliers
- The reality of inherited technical debt and vendor lock-in
- The importance of maintaining existing workflows during crisis
This wasn’t about transformation for transformation’s sake. It was about surgical fixes that stopped the bleeding while positioning for future growth through our maintenance and support services.
“I needed someone who knows what they’re doing and is good value,” Stuart explained. “Not another agency charging £100/hour to tell me nothing can be done.”
Beyond Survival: Building for Growth
Porselli Dancewear faced a choice: accept decline as inevitable or fight back with the right technical partner. One month in, the early metrics suggest they made the right choice.
But this story isn’t just about crisis recovery. The checkout problems killing Porselli’s business exist in varying degrees across most WooCommerce stores. The difference? Some fix them before they become critical.
Every successful store eventually hits a ceiling – whether it’s technical limitations, developer constraints, or user experience debt. The question isn’t whether you have these problems. It’s whether you’ll address them proactively or wait until they threaten your survival.
Is Your Checkout Costing You £4,000 Monthly?
The hanging checkout destroying Porselli’s business could be happening to 5% of your orders right now. Your analytics won’t show when customers refresh during payment confirmation. Your current developer might not care enough to investigate.
Whether you’re scaling successfully or fighting to survive, checkout friction is universal. The only variable is how much it’s costing you.
Get Your Free UX Evaluation to discover what checkout problems are hiding in your analytics – and exactly how much revenue they’re costing you monthly.
Ready to escape developer lock-in and fix the problems holding you back? Schedule a Strategy Call to discuss your specific situation.
About This Project
Client: Porselli Dancewear
Industry: Dance Apparel & Accessories
Location: Norwich, UK
Challenge: 20% revenue decline, checkout failures, developer lock-in
Inventory: 16,000+ product variations
Key Improvements (Month 1):
- 10.34% increase in engaged sessions per user
- 77.78% increase in average engagement time
- Checkout reliability restored
- Search functionality with typo tolerance
- Trust signals and review system implemented
Technologies Implemented:
- Headless WooCommerce architecture
- Smart checkout with regional logic
- Intelligent search with typo tolerance
- Progressive enhancement for mobile
- Liberation from vendor lock-in
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